PHILADELPHIA — The Flyers had just played a poor third period and half of a nervous overtime and were in danger of ending a homestand on a two-game losing streak when, there it was, the sign.

Danny Briere was alone, with the puck, with plenty of open ice.

“Yeah,” Briere said. “I heard it.”

What he heard was genuine. What he heard was unscripted, even in a Wells Fargo Center where so many emotions are electronically prompted. What he heard was a tribute to him, his career, his abilities. What he heard was the sound of 19,691 declaring victory, even with the game still tied.

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“I looked up and it was a one-on-one,” Briere said. “And I also had a good feeling. I got excited for a few seconds.”

It’s not every player — and it’s surely too few Flyers this season — who would receive an ovation, in that spot, simply for having the puck. But it’s not every player who has Briere’s comfort at the big moment, in the playoffs, in an overtime, with a team gurgling and begging for a rescue.

Keith Primeau used to rate that treatment. The Legion of Doom line could generate such anticipation. Rick MacLeish, maybe, back in time. But while others may be met with indifference as they enter the essential batter’s box, Briere has earned that expectation of the tape-measure home run.

So there he was, at the blue line. And a crowd, by then a touch numb, would scream appreciation, fully expecting that the next two sounds would be a foghorn and the revelation of the three stars.

Foghorn, it was.

Three stars, it was.

Thanks for coming, everybody … and buy something on the way out, it was.

“I looked back and I saw Kurtis (Foster) jumping into the play,” Briere said. “I am not sure if it was a defenseman or a forward backchecking. I thought we could make something happen by cutting to the middle.”

Briere cut inside, shot on Cam Ward, heard one clank and perhaps the hint of another, saw the puck deflect off the south side of Ward’s hip pads and called it a night. Flyers 4, Carolina Hurricanes 3.

And even if it an odd geometry to it, the game-winning shot was paid for with earlier disappointments, as both the Flyers and Hurricanes had multiple well-executed chances slide just wide. Keep working, keep shooting, keep anticipating — in a hockey work-ethic sort of way.

But that’s why a Briere can be so vital to a team already in some distress. He is a player for the moment, one with 27 goals in his last 45 playoff games, one who had 30 points in 23 postseason games when the Flyers pushed into the 2010 Stanley Cup Finals. For on a day when he hadn’t supplied much else of highlights-quality, it took him seconds to turn what would have been an ultimately disappointing homestand into one that could redefine the Flyers’ season.

“Yeah, he’s got a great shot and he is using it at the right time,” said Jakub Voracek, who’d scored the third Flyers goal. “He has even said that he doesn’t have to be seen much all game long. But he is that kind of player who will step up at the right time. And that’s why he’s special.”

The goal was Briere’s second in eight games, the start to his season having been delayed by a broken wrist, not just busted players-owners talks. But the Flyers could not risk entering a six-game road trip with consecutive home losses, even if they would have been of the overtime variety. The fans knew that. So when No. 48 took the puck, they exhaled.

And even if Briere didn’t score, the tribute would have been real, and earned. And it would have been provided the next time he was in that spot.

“I think our crowd is amazing at that, sensing when good things are about to happen,” he said. “It was definitely a good feeling.”